Pelosi plans quick action on minimum wage bill

WASHINGTON — Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to fast-track efforts to boost the federal minimum wage and could seek to bring a bill directly to the House floor in January.

The new Democrat-controlled 110th Congress convenes on Jan. 4 and Pelosi of California has made clear that raising the federal minimum wage is a top priority she wants the House to accomplish in its first 100 hours of legislative business.

The legislation is likely to call for phased-in increase in the current federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour along the lines of a proposal written by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the incoming chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

Attempts to lift the federal minimum wage during the Republican-controlled Congress had failed.

In the new congressional session, a House bill boosting the federal minimum wage probably will go straight to the floor for consideration, bypassing the Education and the Workforce committee, said Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly, lobbyists and others involved in the process.

At this point, Pelosi’s preference is for a “stand alone” minimum wage bill that is not tied to other legislative endeavors, Daly and others said.

Organized labor and other supporters of boosting the minimum wage contend it will help the working poor. But business groups and other opponents counter that it could lead to, among other things, higher prices for good and services or force companies, especially smaller ones, to cut entry-level, low-skilled jobs to pay for the wage boost.

In the Senate, business lobbyists believe a bill to boost the minimum wage is more likely to be advanced through committee, giving them an opportunity to try and sweeten the pot with other things such as faster depreciation, for instance, of restaurant buildings, something the restaurant industry would like.